Ramaphosa calls for 300 000 new jobs a year

President Cyril Ramaphosa has acknowledged that the country needs to do something ‘extraordinary’ if we want to reduce the unemployment figure to 6% by 2030 and has called on all sectors of society to pull together to make it happen.

Ramaphosa was addressing government, business, labour and community organisations at the start of the two-day Jobs Summit on Thursday at the Gallagher Convention Centre in Midrand.

“We cannot achieve this if each of us works alone. We need to trust each other as social partners, to understand how our shared and individual interests combine, to cooperate and to work together for a common vision – a growing economy in which the benefits are shared by everyone,” Ramaphosa said.

The president explained that R400-billion will be invested in infrastructure over the next three years to kick start the goal of creating 300 000 jobs a year until 2013 but admits that this will not be enough on its own.

Ramaphosa stated that the key element of growing the economy will be partnerships with private business to not only generate new businesses, but encourage existing companies to procure more locally, and invest in the education of their staff to fix SA’s critical skills shortages particularly in the trades sector.

“As part of this agreement, a number of companies have made specific commitments to local procurement initiatives as part of their operational strategies. These include companies such as Adcock Ingram, Anglogold Ashanti, Clientele, Coca Cola SA, Edcon, First Rand, Lixil, Mondi, Nandos, Nestle, AB InBev, Sappi, Sasol, Standard Bank and Tsogo Sun,” the president explained.

Additionally, Ramaphosa said, the financial sector, as part of its transformation code, will invest R100-billion over five years in black-owned industrial enterprises. Government will work with the financial sector to develop facilities for financing at preferential rates and extended repayment terms.

“In addition to government initiatives amounting to about R600-million, Agbiz and the Banking Association of South Africa have developed a blended finance model designed specifically to make additional funds available to assist potential redistribution beneficiaries to access capital,” he said.

Ramaphosa acknowledged that these measures would be ineffective if government, and its partners, were not working hard to eradicate corruption and the remnants of State capture within both their own ranks and business.

“Business leaders have taken up the challenge to better recognise the value of regulatory interventions which seek to root out private sector corruption and which seek to stimulate more inclusive growth through limiting anti-competitive conduct and structures,” he said.

While the president’s speech was largely well received there were some who cautioned that there are still a number of issues that are left uncovered.

Speaking in The Mail & Guardian Sipho Pityana, the president of Business Unity South Africa, said the disruption of labour by digitisation and the fourth industrial revolution had not been addressed enough and raised concern with the exclusion of young people at the summit.

“These seismic-technological changes stand to disrupt our labour market and change methods and types of jobs required by the economy. We know that this summit doesn’t address this in any systematic and meaningful way,” he said.